Ha! That is an insult to the real profiteering degree mills, the McUniversities, the universities of no chances. PSU is a great school. They will teach you to think for yourself if you are willing and able to put in the time and work. It might cost you a leg and an arm but PSU is a far cry from any of the "universities" you see blasted on television or the internet. Go Viks.

I'm rocking maybe 1-1.5% negative comments of my 451 here at the O-live and have often wrote about civility and generally being cool here in this forum. Ask around, I am a nice guy...usually. Anyway, it has taken me YEARS to make that many comments and when I do attack a pubic official I try to leave a return address. It is only fair. For example, I like to go after the Oregon University System Chancellor’s Office because it has taken me more than a decade of study and experience to patiently find out for myself what they are all about. And what is that, that they are all about? Well, let me save you the time and energy. The OUS admin. is all about the OUS admin. and by that I mean insular thinking, and egotistical self-preserving action. It is like that quote "what is good for General Motors is good for America". Well, no it isn’t. Tell that to global climate change bro. Same with the OUS (GM in this analogy). They would rather raise tuition and fees than their own taxes, or God forbid take a pay cut or drop the dead wood personnel and reorganize. A good old boys’ and girls’ system it is while an endless stream of the young are stuck with the bills. It is called racketeering and the next bubble to burst will be the student loan market. KABOOM! POP! BLAMMO!

With their kind of leadership, the OUS Chancellor’s Office, we can expect decisions based in the idea that what is good for the Chancellor’s Office is good for Oregon and Oregon students regardless of the costs; not the other way around. Or prove me wrong! Don’t raise tuition this one time. Cut costs and try to find more grants for students. Do away with whole administrative departments and pay faculty more. Change! Charge less even.

Higher ed investments have an economic benefit multiplier of 10 to one, according to some studies at the UO. Where else can you get that kind of return? Even if some students study what you may not want to yourself, who are you to say they can't? Full disclosure, I think leaning is just about the best thing anyone can spend their time on.

"But the overview of evidence, in surveys and films and anecdotes, piles up: We are pushing much, sometimes too much, onto the shoulders of our young people."

Don't be surprised if that younger generation turns their back on those that came before either. "Every generation blames the one before" but this time it is truly different. The accumulated bad karma of previous generations, for lack of a better phrase, is so deep and wide that we may all fail. Epically. The planet is at risk, the boomers are going to need to be looked after in their return to dependency on others (old age), the economy sucks, "people treat money like a God" and the hope for the future, the coming generations, are being born with conditions like autism at increasingly alarming rates. We all should do the very best we can, as we do, but it is important to recognize what we can have an impact on and what is totally out of our control. The party is over parents, and the kids are being asked to clean it all up. Some of the damage cannot be fixed at this point, so don't expect any whistling while they work.

Like this matters ($10 bucks no one on the O's staff looks into it) but we caught the thievery going on in I think the last part of the 90's rather than the early part of the 00's. It will be in the paper archive of the Vanguard on campus kept by Judson Randall, the student paper advisor. George and particularly Jay, are demonstrably NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Instead of getting fired, they moved up in the system as you can see today (they were not running the entire OUS back then, just PSU) hence my old boy system comment. I'm a dem, but the republicans are right in this case -- some public administrators truly are bad apples. It is not just hyperbole.

Great piece. As far as "performance goals" for measuring learning goes, the enlightened learners of the world recognize that measuring learning is an inexact science at best, smoke at mirrors at worst and I have about as much confidence in these presidents to do the right thing with tuition levels as I do in a fox watching a hen house. They will line their pockets with student slavery dollars (the loan system) and that of their buddies (both male and female) and not think twice about it. They feel unappreciated as is. The OUS is a good old boy and girl system. Plain and simple. The two at the helm, Chancellor George Pernstiener and VC Jay Kenton, are two of the most corrupt college administrators I have ever worked with and I have been around since 1997 in the public college scene. Back on the 00's we caught them stealing from student fee collections to secretly pay off an athletics debt at PSU. True story. The Vanguard, the PSU student paper, has got the proof to back me up.

I came up with the idea about 10 years ago to form a higher ed advocacy nonprofit when I served on the OUS Board. I never imagined AOI being involved, it is their very tax positions that have helped to keep Oregon students down and out. With friends like that, the Oregon Idea may become the Oregon Afterthought.

Don't flatter yourself. People like Mr. Scotten rarely ever think about people with material wealth. They are too busy trying to make the world a better place for folks. The "envy card" is played out but keep trying. Do you know any rich people? Are they happy people generally? Do you envy stress?

We don't care about your money farther than the people "under" you who actually make that wealth possible and what their lives are like. If that means adjusting the formula to make things more fair, well then I say to you all I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarden. Relearn to share Dr. Bonsky.

I don't know what kind of circles you run in or if you have kids but I have noticed it is becoming cooler to be a little nerdy as of late. Let's hope the trend continues. When I was young it was the cool thing to poo-poo school, at least for boys. Maybe America is realizing just how uncool that is.

Thanks for interacting with us, and thanks for your piece. I will look into the report you suggest. More to your point: I don't care where it gets built, I am not a developer - I have no skin in the game but Oregon needs their own "research triangle". Are you familiar with North Carolina? Being 1/2 the population is in the tri-county area, that seems a logical location. So I kinda agree with you but refuse to get lost in the idolatry of it, I mean "branding" of it. Getting upset over which school gets Portland is a waste of time and energy.

You can call me Tim. I have read some of your posts. Do not take this the wrong way, but I am worried for you. Are you OK? Are you an older gentleman? Do you have a medical condition maybe? Do you have family that can look after you? I say all this out of loving concern because what you write sometimes does not make sense to the rest of us. Please be very careful what you write here. People read it all over.

Nice handle and, spot on. These lobbies and businesses sat idly as the state and country came down, crying about their taxes, probably reading Ayn Rand and fretting that while they really believe their time is worth 600 bucks an hour, they are only now getting 550.

With income inequities as they are, it is not about hating the rich. The rich are doing better then they ever have. It is about recognizing that there are billions of people supporting the crazy lifestyles and fantasy land wealth of plutocrats. You can say I and others hate the rich, but I think it is more about looking after the poor and judging them fairly. It seems you are overly concerned with how we judge the rich. Why is that? Are you rich? If you are, good luck getting into heaven. No seriously, I think I read that somewhere. :-)

I agree. I don't think this was the author's intention but by asking for an OSU in Portland, he is helping to strengthen the argument for more, not less, public oversight of the public universities. Left to their own devices, each president would have a duplicative presence in Portland. I'm sorry, but that is PSU's turf. Back off Beavers and all others. We will BBQ your mascots in the manner of a brutal viking if you hit the tri-country area...At least that is my hope. We cannot afford it otherwise.

Watch as the McEducation models fail; online is no panacea. Studies show it has to be complimented with real world interaction. Nothing will ever replace the physical spaced needed for real education even if it is in a grove of trees with ipads. So in the words of the youth, that would be an "epic fail" to hope we can skirt our responsibilities to institutions older than this country because the Internets says so. Online can help but as most communication is nonverbal, most learning is still out of the classroom between peers. Really liked your last sentence here "Sure, you could indenture yourself for years to come with student loans, but I think maybe the object of education is to promote the person's general advancement in life, not to bury them deeper."